Emotions in the background of the pioneer of optogenetics

They. One of the pioneers of optogenetics research, Carl Deisseroth, a professor of bioengineering, psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, wanted to keep the clinic going. In this wonderfully written first book, as inhabited “Human Stories” He collected, entrusting the reader with his own emotions against the background of the emotions expressed by his patients. At the same time, he describes and analyzes the neural network of the brain, “A mixture of electricity and chemistry.” [qui] It allows the human mind to do everything—remember, think, and feel.”.

The emotion is also in how the author, a 2021 recipient of the prestigious Albert-Lasker Prize for Fundamental Research, explains how he interprets his imagination. “Insights from the literature have always seemed to me extremely important to understanding patients, offering much more information about the brain than the best microscopes.”, he wrote. This creative sensibility led him to consider ways of studying the functioning of the brain system. The author says that at the end of his medical studies he wants to become a neurosurgeon, to understand emotions at the cellular level and their connections, he thinks he would have “The most specific access to the human brain”. Then comes A “founding meeting” Obsessed with James Joyce, a patient with severe schizoaffective disorder, she describes him as “The Finnegan of the maintenance department [en milieu] firm”. Distraught, he then turned to psychiatry.

Stimulation of brain neurons

“Patient Care While Inventing New Brain Study Tools” becomes its purpose. In the early 2000s, at the head of Stanford’s Bioengineering Laboratory, he developed optogenetics, a technology that allows brain neurons to be observed and stimulated with light, directly and specifically. His work led to major advances in understanding how cells create brain functions and behaviors. Thus, from mammalian studies, it is possible to record processes related to feelings, to interfere with their representation, and thus, for example, to change the passive/active behavior of a subject facing a challenge. This technique, which is very invasive in humans at this point, has so far only seen clinical use in a blind man with a neurodegenerative disease who was able to regain partial vision.